Chains of Gold

by Nancy Springer

  Once beyond the crowd Arlen touched my arm, and we sprang forward and ran for the stable. I saw that tears streaked his face—from the smoke or from sorrow? There was no time to ask or comfort. We reached the horse; already saddled and bridled it awaited us, a comely dapple gray, Lonn’s charger. The mane shimmered eerily on its deeply curved crest, and on its flanks the dapples glowed darkly, nearly purple, the color of storm clouds. Winterking glory.… Arlen mounted and helped me up behind him. He made no sound, but I felt him shaking, felt his broad chest heave; it was sorrow.

  “Do not weep,” I told him softly.

  “How am I to help it? I loved him as a brother, and I did not somehow find a way to save him. I am a coward—”

  “A harsh thing to say of the one for whom Lonn gave his life,” I reproved him.

  A distant roar went up, the blood-shout from hundreds of throats, and Arlen sent the horse springing forward. Down to the shoreline it sped, through the willows, and out onto the black water it leaped, and straight across the surface of the Naga it galloped, sending up crownforms with its hooves. Once I looked back over my shoulder. The Sacred Isle was a nothingness, lost in winter mist; it might as well have never been. And already day had turned to dusk.

  We came to the shore of the Secular Lands amidst a crowd of pavilions, and I realized that Arlen was riding at random, scarcely knowing what he was doing, or he would have taken us farther downriver, away from the lords’ encampment. It did not matter. The lords and ladies were all on the Isle being sprinkled with blood, and the few servant folk who were about merely stared at us. I recognized my father’s pavilion close at hand, its pointed top emblazoned with his sevenfold tower emblem.

  “Wait,” I said to Arlen, “stop,” and he did not question me, only brought the horse to a halt. “Wait but a moment,” I told him, and I slid down and ran into the pavilion. My things were there, packed up in a chest as if to be sold; I never would have seen them again. I snatched up a pair of fur boots—slippers, really—and put them on my bare feet. I found my mantle—not the grand sable one I had worn to the Sacred Isle, but my everyday one of brown wool—and fastened it on. I gathered up some blankets. My father’s manservant had come in and stood watching me with his mouth agape. “If you say so much as a word about this to anyone,” I told him grimly, “I will come back from my grave to haunt you.” It was of no use, I knew—of course the man would tell everything if Rahv asked. No one could withstand Rahv.

  I ran for the horse and handed Arlen the blankets.

  He took them numbly, laid them across his mount’s withers, and helped me up behind him again. Day had nearly turned to dark by then. We started off downstream along the riverbank, and all the servants stood and watched us go without a sound.

  Perversely, with the mantle gathered around me and the slippers warming my feet, I started shivering. I pulled up my hood. We followed the riverbank, guided by the faint gleam of water in darkness.

  “Will they pursue us?” I asked Arlen, and he came out of his torpor sufficiently to answer me.

  “The Gwyneda have no retainers that I know of, and they themselves never leave the island—that I know of. But they will be mightily wroth, I assure you. They might find ways.… And your father, will he not come after you?”

  He most certainly would, and not because of love, either. With some thought of keeping our strength up—for I still was not hungry—I reached into my robe and found a hunk of bread. I offered some of it to Arlen. He shook his head.

  “You eat it,” he said, so I did. Gnawing at it, I found myself suddenly famished and finished it all. I restrained myself from eating any more. We might need it later; the night was dark, and only the goddess knew what might be on the hunt for us.

  FOUR

  It was a hyperboreal storm, as it turned out, that first emperiled us. Down from the frozen mountains to the far north snow came hissing, and stinging shards of ice driven before a mighty blast, breath of harsh Bora. At once we could see nothing, not even the glimmer of the river; the night was all befogged by snow. And cold! The numbing cold of the day had been nothing compared to this biting, strength-sapping cold at the fore of a thin and coiling wind. It struck through all my defenses of wool and endurance to whatever warm core was left in me, and I began to be afraid. The realms of death were in the north, folks said, and such storms were of the goddess’s sending.

  “Name of the goddess!” Arlen exclaimed. “We are in the water.”

  We had strayed into the river; we could hear it splashing about the horse’s hooves. No wonder, as we could not see, and I did not understand the tone of shocked surprise in Arlen’s voice until he spoke again.

  “The—the power, it must be gone, somehow. The magic.”

  The horse was walking in the water, not on it. As long as we kept to the shallows, I thought, it did not matter, but Arlen seemed stunned. A stammer came into his voice, and he kept talking even though he could not have known whether I was listening.

  “But—I—I have ridden all the way down the Naga’s tail, down the Long Lake and over the spires of the lost city that lies under the water, and I have ridden up through the Blackwater all the way to the Lakes of the Winds, all of us lads, we used to go in procession—”

  I could see them in my mind’s eye, the doomed youths on holiday, laughing amongst themselves, fair tunics and bare throats and proudly lifted heads, riding their bright and beautiful horses upon the surface of the Catena. I smiled with wonder, even though my flesh had started to freeze.

  “—though we were never allowed to set foot on any shore except our own, the Sacred Isle, we or the steeds.”

  The wind swallowed his words in a wild assault that made us both wince. We had to find shelter soon or we would both be dead. But how? The horse kept moving under us, but we could not see where we were going. Arlen must have had similar thoughts.

  “I do not have a notion where—” he muttered. “Wait, a shore—”

  We both felt the bump and the effort as the horse brought us out of the water, up a steep and rocky slope—my arms were locked around Arlen in a clutch as of a corpse, or I would have slid off backwards. Then the horse pushed a way into something that thwarted the force of the wind. Twigs against my face.… The horse stopped of its own accord.

  “Yew,” Arlen said, for there were small round leaves on the twigs even then, in the deep of winter. “By my body, I know where we are! Rae, get down.”

  I slid off, but my numbed legs would not hold me and I fell into the snow. It was not very deep, there under the trees. Arlen dismounted and dumped the blankets on top of me. I heard him struggling with the saddle and bridle, and he took one of the blankets for the horse, tying it onto the animal’s body with the reins, but I did not realize that until later, for I was half in a stupor.

  Presently Arlen found me, tugged me upright, and put his arm around me to steady me. “This way,” he murmured. “Come on.”

  Out we went into the blast of the storm again, this time on foot. I followed him without question, leaning against him.

  “Cerilla, walk,” he said sharply. “I cannot carry you. It is not far. In fact, it should be close at hand.”

  The tone of his voice roused me, and I straightened. He was feeling about at what seemed to be the side of a hill. Then with a wordless grunt of discovery or satisfaction he took my shoulders, urged me down into a crouch, and guided me into a sort of cave or hole. I crawled in, silently cursing my long gown, which hindered me; I hitched it up to my hips, careless of the stones against my knees.

  We were in a passage, I realized after a few moments, and it led downward as well as forward, and it was not large enough to stand in or even stoop in; nor did it seem that it ever intended to widen. Therein laired the darkest of all possible darks, and something in me rebelled against it. I stopped.

  “Keep going,” said Arlen, behind me.

  “What sort of place is this?” I protested, an edge in my voice.

  “It is an out-of-the-w
ind place, and a somewhat-warmer place,” he replied just as snappishly—he was weary, too, and grieving. “Move!”

  “It is a tomb,” I said, and instantly the words sent a chill of fear through me. It was true, though I had not allowed myself fully to think it until I spoke. At any moment I was likely to find bones under my hands. Or any of the things that live in the underground places of the dead, something worse than bones—

  “Arlen,” I questioned, quietly this time, “have you ever been in here?”

  “No. How could I? We were not allowed on any shore but our own. This is a crannog; it sits in the midst of the river, at a ford—”

  I was not listening to him. “Great Mother,” I muttered, “what is likely to be in here?”

  “For myself, I really do not care.” The despair in his voice wrung my heart. “If I could go before you, Rae, I would, but I came behind to stop up the entry somewhat.”

  But I had already started off again. I crawled doggedly, slapping my hands down hard, trying not to think of what they might find, not thinking at all until I banged my head against something made of stone. I stopped with a small moan.

  “What is it?” Arlen asked from behind me, apprehensive.

  “Nothing.” Nothing but a squarish slab of stone, waist high. I felt to either side of me and found nothing but floor and air. Overhead, nothing either. The constricting stone walls and roof of the passage had widened, it seemed. Cautiously I straightened to my knees, then to my feet. There was room to stand. And it must have been warmer down there than I knew, for the pain of my bumped head was as a twinge compared to the pain in my reawakening legs. I gave up standing and slumped to the floor again, whimpering between clenched teeth. Arlen felt his way over to me.

  “What is it, Rae? Have you found something?”

  “No! I—am—perishing of cold, that is all.”

  “Well, here.” He arranged the blanket on top of me, doubled it even, then moved away. I could hear him exploring our quarters as best he could in the utter darkness. The chamber was not large; the wall did not seem to be much beyond my feet.

  “It seems to be a cenotaph, an empty tomb,” Arlen said when he had found his way back to me. “There is nothing in here except us.” He knew the questions in my mind. “Is the blanket helping?” he added.

  “Not enough,” I grumped. Now that we were safe, for the time, all my daring had left me. I lay shivering and sullen.

  “Well, let me lie with you then, for warmth.”

  I hoped he had no thought except for that, for certainly I had never felt less amorous. He lifted the blanket, lay down close beside me, and I gasped—his flesh was icy, far colder than mine. Hastily I flung my mantle over him as well as the blanket, pressed myself against his chest, rubbing his back with my hands. Of course he would be frozen, he in only his tunic. I had thought it was his masculine hardness that had made him brave the cold without complaining, but I had been mistaken; so gripped was he by grief that he truly had not noticed. He might have died, not noticing.

  “Flex your feet,” I ordered him. “Bend your toes.”

  “Why?” He did not obey me. His head felt heavy against my arm.

  “Arlen,” I said, terrified, “do not go to sleep, or you are likely never to awaken again.”

  “It does not matter,” he murmured.

  “It matters to me!” I cried in his ear, startling him. I felt him jump. “It matters to me,” I said again, more softly but more sternly. “Talk to me,” I added.

  “What is there to say?” He was going to be troublesome.

  “Tell me about yourself. I pledged my undying devotion to you some several hours ago; I would like to know something about you.”

  I believe he nearly laughed; I felt a tremor in him. “There is not much to tell,” he said. “We boys were raised on the Sacred Isle from the time of our birth, given as much as we wanted to eat and made to keep our bodies chaste and beautiful for the goddess, and sometimes the white-robes got a hand’s turn of work out of us, but for the most part of the time we ran wild.”

  Wild lads, youths and lads, the lot of them riding on the Naga, down to the strand where the glain lie, the blue stone snake eggs of the great serpent in the sea. I smiled at the thought of such riding, wondered if anyone had ever seen them, had ever thought them a vision. But to find the glain, the talisman of seers, and never be let to set foot on the strand even to pick one up—my smile left me. So there was no magic in Arlen’s steed any more, because it had set foot on a shore.

  Arlen had fallen silent.

  “Were they cruel to you?” I blurted to keep him talking, and instantly I could have bitten my tongue. It was a tactless question. But it made him stir.

  “Sometimes.” His voice sounded distant. “There were many ordeals, torments. We had to be tough—and they were always pitting us against each other, placing us on our mettle, so that we would vie for the honor—” He stopped.

  The honor of being slaughtered. He was not yet ready to speak of that. “Tell me about your family,” I said.

  “I have none.” He sounded amused, and warmer, closer. “No more than the Gwyneda do. The oracle gives them a new name when they come to the Sacred Isle, and after that they have none other, and to their families they are as if dead.”

  “Well,” I remarked, “for me that would have been the one good thing about being a white-robe.”

  “Daughter of Rahv. Yes.” He understood. “But do you not have a mother?” he asked me.

  “She died somehow when I was younger. I do not remember that she was sick, and everyone has always been very vague about it.” I shrugged. “I think Father killed her because she did not give him sons.”

  There was silence. I had stopped shivering and forgotten the cold; I felt quite comfortable.

  “But you have a mother among the Gwyneda,” I said presently.

  “Perhaps. But I do not know which one it might be; none of us do. It was said that the white-robes do not know themselves, though I cannot see how that could be—but none of them ever gave a sign.”

  I kept silence, hoping he would go on of his own accord, and in a moment he did.

  “There were always a few extra of us, a few more than might be needed for the ceremonials, I mean, though some died of fever and the like, and some were pockmarked or whatnot and—were sent away, I know not how, disappeared. For they were unpleasing to the goddess.” He took a deep breath. “I was going to say, my mother might not have been a white-robe. But if she was, I always hoped she was one of the kind ones. Lonn and I—” He stopped with a choking sound.

  He had been about to speak of Erta, I felt sure, but that meant speaking of Lonn. Speak of Lonn, I urged him inwardly, it will do you good. Grief turns to venom, unspoken. But I could not say such things to him, for I did not yet know him well. Instead, I kissed his face, since it lay close to mine. He shook his head rapidly, and his whole body tightened into a knot.

  “Mother of torments, Rae, the pain!” he cried, panting. “Ai, why did you have to warm me?”

  I thought he meant the pain of limbs coming to life, and so I suppose he did, in a way. I rubbed his shoulders to ease him, thought of reaching down to rub the calves of his legs. But then all in a rush between gasps of agony he began speaking of Lonn, none too connectedly.

  “I could have gone, slipped away so easily—but no, then I had to stay and be with—Rae, the torment!” His arms were tightening around me, too tight, constricting. “I thought I was brave, but now I know better. That was why I wanted to go first, winterking, so I would not have to see—what he did not want to see—oh, no, Lonn, Lonn!” The name came out in a terrible cry, and his arms were crushing me, but I would not cry out, not then, not for anything. By far the worse pain was his, then.

  “He would have been next,” I whispered, with a small shock of comprehension. “Summerking.…”

  “In a six-month. Yes.” He went limp, releasing me, and lay beside me gasping or sobbing—the darkness shielded him, and I
could tell nothing about him in that blackness unless he spoke to me. I needed his touch.

  “Arl?”

  His hand found mine, and he quieted.

  “Are you all right?”

  He did not answer me except by drawing me close to him again, gently this time. “Rae,” he murmured, “how can I be so in love with you and still so heartsore?”

  I brought the viands out of the placket of my robe. “Here,” I said. “Eat.”

  He sighed, letting go of sorrow for the time, and sat up and nibbled at what I gave him. After a moment he ate ravenously and I sat beside him and ate as well; we were both hard put to stop and save some food for the morrow. Then Arlen went up to the entry and fetched the saddle pad, put it down to ease the hard, stony floor for us. We lay on it with the blanket doubled over us, close together for warmth, and exhausted as we were, immediately we slept.…

  “Lonn?” It was a panicky voice, calling. “Lonn!”

  I awoke to a feeling of cold and struggle. All was pitch blackness, as before, and Arlen was thrashing about beside me, half out of our bed, sitting up and letting in the chill. “Lonn! Rae?” he called in the same panicky way, and I reached over to touch him before realizing that he was still asleep; I was still half asleep myself. As soon as my fingers touched his arm he turned and seized me with such force that I cried out. But then he came to himself and pulled me to him more gently, held me with the passion of fear still in him.

  “I am sorry, very sorry!” he exclaimed. “Have I hurt you? I thought—”

  “It was a dream,” I told him.

  “I know. It is all very confused. I thought—Lonn was taking you from me, for he was the sacred king and his was the bride right. I saw him in all that unearthly beauty that was his at the last.…”

  Mischief was in me, because I had been awakened so abruptly. “Did I go with him willingly?” I teased, and Arlen let go of fear with a laugh.

  “No indeed, you did not!” I felt rather than saw his smile. “Moreover, I am a fool even to dream such a thing. Lonn would never—Rae, I may never again know such a loyal and honorable friend.”